To Bridgwater for a day reflecting on the how-where-what-why of stories, described as 'a feast of story-telling in its widest sense' by organiser Tim Hill who is Outdoor Celebratory Arts officer for Thrive Somerset and also provided the feast of homemade bread and soup for lunch. What are stories? Perhaps we never decided, but this was a rich day in terms of ideas and creative camaraderie as as participants from across Somerset and beyond shared stories and strawberries in the sunny garden of the Arts Centre.

Home of the Wriggler probably sounded quite good at the planning stage.
An abandoned car factory, what tales that could tell! Think of all the people whose lives, over the years, were dominated by the motor industry, imagine fragments of their stories threaded together to show the heart-beat of a community, a kind of Under-Milk-Wood but from the dark of a disused car works - and best of all, the actors will generate their own onstage lighting by peddling a giant bicycle, which will be ironic as well as ecologically radical. You can see why Stan's Cafe thought they were on a winner with their new show. The reality was that staring into Stygian gloom while four people gossip about humdrum lives of far too many names to follow, sadly, palls after about as long as it takes to think Ooh they're generating their own onstage lighting, how very ecologically radical and ironic. Which is about an hour short of the running time.

With so much theatrical stuff taking my attention recently, it's ages since I was last at a poetry reading. Poetry Can is organising the Bristol Spring Poetry Festival so Emily and I went along to the Arnolfini to listen to George Szirtes, supported by Peter Bennet and Rita Ann Higgins. Szirtes came to England from Hungary aged 8, after the 1956 uprising; he writes of displacement and madness and how 'being ordinary is the extraordinary thing', complex ideas and simple words, gorgeously crafted. The election was mentioned only once, at the end, when the compere suggested that "Poetry provides some redress." Well... consolation and inspiration, yes, but no remedy: Like Szirtes said,
We are the poppies sprinkled along the field.
We are simple crosses dotted with blood.
Beware the sentiments concealed
in this short rhyme. Be wise. Be good.

"The art of writing is to explain the complications of the human soul with the simplicity that can be universally understood" Alan Sillitoe wrote, quoted by poet Ian McMillan in his tribute to the author who died this week. Sillitoe's seminal novels Saturday Night and Sunday Morning and Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner made stars of Albert Finney and Tom Courtney, and nearly 50 years on he inspired the Arctic Monkey's 2006 debut album: Whatever You Say I Am That's What I'm Not.

And finally: a year on, One-And-Other have moved all their webcam stuff to the British Library archive so my Plinth hour will be archived forever, theoretically. In fact although I'm credited with 139 "Like!" hits, my slot ends after a minute - there's more here as I manage a shout-out to end the war in Afghanistan before being JCBd away...
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Sometimes a night at the theatre transports you to a wonderful world of heightened reality, blissful or provocative, hilarious or profound, with scripts you'd cut your arm off to have written and performances that break your heart. And sometimes it doesn't.
I don't know what to say about Anything but Love at the Brewery which envisaged a late-night whisky-and-confidences indulgence between lyricist Dorothy Fields and epigramist Dorothy Parker by tacking together a random selection of Parker's quips, other than that the women did their best with a limp script and the songs were very pleasant. They didn't use my favourite Parker-bite, though: One more drink and I'll be under the host...
From Bristol to Bath: Tim Crouch's My Arm had rave reviews but maybe the impact of this overlong overly-cerebral piece relied on Tim's personal performance style. The 're-imagined' version by Greyscale didn't grab me, and the Lego alter-ego of the man who held his arm up for 30 years was disconcertingly reminiscent of Eddie Izzard as Darth Vadar in the canteen on Youtube. Though not as entertaining.
The companion piece performance What would Judas do?, developed from an idea by Stewart (Jerry Springer the Opera) Lee, was more accessible, delivered with panache and small oranges hurled into the auditorium as rewards for participating with the actor's banter. I think this flying party-bag approach was part of the company's mission statement to "engage and manipulate our audience's experience of the stories we share with them... engaging the theatrical sensibility and expertise of the actor, designer and director as a provoking instead of reactive force". But I'm not sure.
The Ustinov won't mind my mystification: their target is 'an audience that wouldn't go to the Main House in a million years', director Andrew Smaje says. I learned more about how everything dovetails together from Danny Moar, boss of the Theatre Royal Bath, for my Plays International article. Complex in both senses of the word, TRB is an impressive model of integrated theatre projects, and great for the city to have a successful venue for popular shows with a commercial producing arm that subsidises its experimental studio theatre and children's theatre and even runs an education department too.
Over in the Arts-funded world, policies seem about as popular as bankers' bonuses, so it was impressive to hear Lyn Gardner, theatre spokesperson for The Guardian, sounding so enthusiastic at the big farewell party for Seth as he steps down from his role as director of Theatre Bristol. "Theatre Bristol is marvellous - a precocious baby in the changing face of theatre. Something is stirring in Bristol, and it's been started by Theatre Bristol - it's allowed people to dream about what kind of culture they'd like, and it would never have happened without Theatre Bristol."
Seth himself spoke briefly and more sombrely, ending simply "Let's have a party", and we did, with a 10-piece band to help out. I went with Rosie Finnegan to spread the word about Nevertheless Productions, our new pub theatre venture: for us, at least, Theatre Bristol has been valuable to help us access Bristol Mothership from the small satellite outpost of Frome.

Before Alan Bennett dipped into the Joe-Ortonesque angst that produced his misnomered play Enjoy, he was part of the sensational 60s silliness of Beyond the Fringe, and it's from this place of sublime absurdity that Habeas Corpus emerged. It's a superb farce, shimmering with sexual frisson and hyperbolic parody, with ludicrous lines like 'King Sex is a wayward monarch', a story of gratuitous trouser-drops and rapacious longings, embellished with snatches of song and poetic mini-monologues at unexpected moments. Frome Drama Club did the piece proud. The cast relished the gleeful comedy, and Philip de Glanville's direction, combined with the brilliant, cleverly used, set of scarlet doors, managed to bring out the subtle underlying poignancy too, as all these lonely people struggle to connect. A strong troupe with wonderful individual moments, but the star of the show was David Holt as Arthur Wickstead, whose final dervish dance was a simply unforgettable piece of theatre.

And, before this mirage summer vaporises, here's the image that has epitomised the days for me: magnolia seems to be everywhere this year, thriving on the late-arriving sun.

"If you want to write a play, write it - don't depend on funding, all you need is determination" was the staunch advice from Nell Leyshon at the South West New Writing Network meeting at the Lighthouse Theatre in Poole on Friday. Sensible too, considering the data emerging from the panel discussion - viz: in the last 5 years production hasn't increased but there are now four times as many playwrights and "New writing has gone off the Arts Council table full stop."
The State of Play in the South West was the topic under discussion, with David Lane as Chair posing the opening question: "There's a tangible passion to create new writing in the south west, but unlike other areas we don't have a big celebratory event, and we don't have development agencies networking with theatres to get new writing seen - do we need these?"
The second point was the one that stuck - does development really help, or should the writer's apprenticeship be an essentially solitary pursuit? I never got to find out the difference between 'development' and 'dramaturgy' other than that the first appears to be for the writer and the second for specific plays. My dramaturge is brilliant, and his input is crucial to my apprenticeship, which seems like the best kind of development to me. Try, fail, Beckett said, try again and fail better. An empathetic guide can help you do that, even if there's still not enough money or producing venues. Like Nell said, the world doesn't need another play, it's just that we writers need it write them.

This was the week summer came barging blithely in, elbowing diffident spring out of the way with vast armfuls of blossom and leaf. Make the most of it, we advised each other sagely, it may be all we get this year. Or at least those of us did who aren't stuck somewhere else being VAVs - the in-the-groove acronym for volcanic ash victims. I'm not sure if VAVs officially include evacuated farmers who watched glacier-melt torrent wash away their roads and herds... Strange days indeed.
Days for reacquainting with the garden, and a week for subtitled movies too: in the cinema Lo sono l'amore, directed by Sicilian Luca Guadagnino - a complex, often sombre, family saga featuring Tilda Swinton and lush cinemaphotography of confident, perhaps over-confident, visual lyricism.
And on DVD, a very different take on patriarchal continental life in Être et avoir, director Nicolas Philibert's equally beautifully-shot documentary from rural France. It deservedly won heaps of awards but I was sad to read the charming teacher tried to sue for some of the profits when this quiet movie scooped big box-office and prize money, claiming his recorded words made him a co-writer.

And finally... the musical version of onomatopoeia, possibly my silliest poem ever, has now topped 5000 views on Youtube - thanks folks and thanks Howard for the movie!
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Waiting for Wilmot, written by extraordinarily talented playwright Steve Hennessy as an ensemble production for his Stepping Out Theatre Company, opened this week at The Brewery. It's an incredibly brave play, which often means 'doesn't quite work' but in this case means it's courageous and successful too. More than a moving tribute to a valued member of the group who died two years ago, it's a tribute to the whole team, and to the power of creativity and comradeship, and a deep, often painful, sometimes hilarious, study of the nature of grieving itself. "It might be a bit bonkers, but Ian's story is the story of the group" says Steve, or one of him (there are four), urging his crew to go with him into the underworld where actors' characters lurk after the plays are over, to contrive their friend's resurrection.
We find out what we want to say by writing it, Alan Bennett said. And what is especially powerful about this play is that while it explores frankly, obsessively, possibly even egomanically, the writer's own grief, it also allows the individual talents of this disparate group to genuinely shine. The magic, the songs, the comedic action (special merit award to the Chekhov-mauling seagull) are all gems. Steve's chronicle of his beloved friend never lets us forget the elephants in the room - the drinking, moodiness, paranoid insecurity - but there are golden elephants there too: Ian's luminous artwork - stained glass, ceramics, witty installations and illustrations, eloquent photographs. A glorious tribute not only to Ian Wilmot but to anyone who ever survived, or died in the attempt.

Frome's Black Swan Gallery is full of impressive art works too, submitted for the 2010 Open Exhibition. Winners have been picked, but the 'popular vote' hasn't yet been counted. Mine goes to an amazing diptych created from burnt matches entitled The Pity of War, by Michelle Cioccoloni - a larger than life portrait of Wilfred Owen together with the preface to his war poems: "This book is not about heroes. English poetry is not yet fit to speak of them. Nor is it about deeds, or lands, nor anything about glory, honour, might, majesty, dominion, or power, except War. Above all I am not concerned with Poetry. My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity."

Diary date alert - July 9th to 18th is the Frome Arts Festival which will as ever feature a diversity of spoken word events, from talks and readings to workshops and performance. Brochures not due out till early May but you can check out some of our events online here.

And finally: have I got Have I Got News For You news for you... The Co-op is changing the name of one of their products: Ambient Sausage Rolls will be renamed without the adjective after officials admitted they didn't know what it meant. It was an administrative error, a spokesperson said, caused by labels being printed in the in-store bakery. Presumably the design department were all busy baking buns.
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I always thought Alan Bennett's forte was tracking the underbelly of ordinary life and laying bare the subtext of trivial conversations - humour with compassion, rather than macabre farce. Enjoy, arriving at the Theatre Royal Bath from the West End, disabused me of that notion. It's been hailed as a lost gem, a prescient, blackly comic modern classic, but I realised I wasn't going to do as instructed by the title from the opening word. ('Sweden', if you were wondering, repeated several times because of Connie's dementia, though it turned out it was really Swindon anyway. Oh the hilarity.) For all the sniggering at senility and penises, this is a dark story of abuse, betrayal and denial as observed by a transgendered son returning to spy on his dysfunctional family. "A writer has to use whatever is to hand in the way of experience" Alan Bennett has said, "You don't put yourself into what you write - you find yourself there."

Over at the Alma Tavern, The Game of Love by Mark Seaman also reaches into marital failure and incest. It's another ironic title: Carol is a sex worker and has asked lonely Tony to stay and talk only as protection against her loitering pimp. The life stories they unfold slowly over instant coffee are plausible but unremittingly sad, and the decision to set this case-study in 1967 was never fully clarified or explored.

Out in the real-time world, there's burgeoning and bird-songing and budding occurring as spring finally gushes in like a great severed artery of sunlight, spilling lascivious blossom and optimism everywhere. These are days for walks and cycle rides, and about time too. The next Poetry Cafe theme is Wild in the Country, with marvellous nature-celebratory poet Rose Flint leading the revels on 5th May.

'Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory' is following the Dream with The Tempest, where a very different magician controls events far darker. Prospero, brooding endlessly on vengeance, has no faerie queen to tiff with and only two sprites for company: ethereal Ariel and brutish Caliban.
So why, you might wonder, does Ariel play Caliban - or rather, the same actor play both? I wondered too, until the final scene when Prospero turns to his crouched monster-slave and frees him with the speech to Ariel, and every bipolar anomaly in this harsh story fused suddenly in a profound sense of emotional resolution. Well it did for me. A fine production in the old-school tradition: impressive visually, and with a strong team of excellent actors. Miranda and Ferdinand (Ffion Jolly and Benjamin Askew) brought riveting conviction to their unlikely romance, the villains were vicious and the buffoons entertaining - especially Felix Hayes, an unforgettable Wall in the previous production, as the jester Trinculo.
(Thanks Graham Burke for the pic of Christopher Staines as Ariel. And Caliban. And, with big vanilla-blancmange breasts, as a table-top raver in the Masque sequence too.)

Lucky Dip was the theme for the second STAGE WRITE evening of readings at the Merlin foyer and to the delight of Niamh and I as co-hosts, the event surpassed even the success of 7 Ages of Shoes last year. The foyer was totally crowded and response was enthusiastic, and the readers were all just brilliant. "Enjoy an evening of varied styles: funny, poignant, often surprising, always authentic" we put on the flyer, and the stories were, and the audience did. Mega-thanks to Deborah, Jill, Alison, Linda, Annette, Audrey, Magnus, Rosie, Kevin, Laura, and of course Niamh - and to all our appreciative listeners who turned out on a sleety night to support spoken word and creativity in Frome. We couldn't have done it without you.

Standing room only at this month's Garden of Awen for a lively gallimaufry of spoken word. Dave Lassman led off with a champagne launch for his book on the Art of Self Publicity (check Wikipedia to see how good he is at this) followed by performances on the night's theme of fools and tricks. As guest poet I really appreciated the supportive energy of the audience, and there were some great contributions from the floor - songs by Ali George, and an amazing impro of random thoughts about Bath co-ordinated by Ben for his project on collecting the vibes of a town through unpremeditated lyricism... looking forward to that on Youtube. Which reminds me the animated version of my poem Onomatopoeia has 4925 hits currently - I'm hoping it'll reach five thousand before the end of the month (hint hint)
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